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D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 12:55 AM
If so, let me know :D

Hahaha! Finally got myself a telescope! Now I just have to learn how to use it!

D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 12:55 AM
Managed to get myself a couple good photos of the moon. Pretty good, considering it was cold and cloudy out and I don't know a thing about photography!

speedracer
12-07-2003, 01:09 AM
Thats pretty kwel!

That the best a simple digital camera will show :( Can't even see the craters - lol
http://www.speedracer.ca/html/modules/gallery/albums/album78/PICT0036.sized.jpg

Mckenzie
12-07-2003, 01:15 AM
Thats sweet man....:thumbsup:

I have a telescope that I still havent figured out how to use. That one looks really expensive too....

Stratus_Power
12-07-2003, 01:17 AM
hey how much did thing thing cost ya? im planning to get one next year when i move out of campus and into my own place hopefully.. wat kind of budget should i be looking at

JAYMEZ
12-07-2003, 01:17 AM
woah thats sweet , how much does that one cost??

D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 01:23 AM
Actually, the telescope isn't really that expensive in comparison to other decent ones out there. The one I got is at Costco for $265, which is a really smoking good price seeing's how it's got the motorized arm. The one I got (Celestron Nexstar 114GT) is a recently discontinued model and somehow Costco managed to get a shit load of them and they're selling them off at bargain prices. Costco was selling the same model a few months back during the Mars hype and they sold out really quickly. I've been reading that a lot of the people in the US have been snatching them up and selling them off on eBay for a nice amount of profit. If you're interested in one, I'd really suggest getting your ass to Costco tomorrow, cause they're not going to last long. I checked out some of the telescopes at the store at the science center and the closest one they have that's about the same quality starts at $300 (Celestron Firstscope 114) and doesn't even have the motorized arm.

I've been doing a lot of reading around on telescopes for the last little while and it seems the budget for a decent telescope for beginners is around $300-400'ish.

04blackMAX
12-07-2003, 01:25 AM
sweet id like one, is that the closest you can get to the moon, i know nothing about telescopes!!

D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 01:30 AM
Originally posted by 04blackMAX
sweet id like one, is that the closest you can get to the moon, i know nothing about telescopes!!

Actually it's the closest I could get the picture with! I was using the 10x eyepiece for the picture. The 25x eyepiece could see quite a bit better but I couldn't get a decent shot with my camera. Once I get more used to using it, I'll pick up some better eyepieces.

Kamen
12-07-2003, 02:44 AM
Sweet pics man!
You voyeur you :rofl:

Ben
12-07-2003, 02:52 AM
I have a huge B&L Telescope, stands like 5.5 feet tall, it shows mars as red and you can distinctly see the shape of saturn with the rings. I'm gonna try for some pictures when its warmer out (ice crystals screw your clarity at that distance)

pinoyhero
12-07-2003, 09:28 AM
I had a ton of fun with my telescope only problem is its one of those things that you use for a month or so then you get sick of it and it just starts getting in the way. Eventually I packed it backup into the box and it just sits in the closet now.

/////AMG
12-07-2003, 11:20 AM
:eek: Damn those pictures are sweet. Quality looks awesome.

Costco has a lot of good stuff:thumbsup:

Seanith
12-07-2003, 03:34 PM
do those telescopes have built in cameras or something? how do you take pics with them?

D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 04:06 PM
Originally posted by ~$eanith~
do those telescopes have built in cameras or something? how do you take pics with them?

Nope. I had to point my digicam into the eye piece for the pictures, which is why it's not that sharp (atleast not as sharp as I could see with my eye). I'm definitely going to be getting a camera adaptor for the telescope though. :)

D'z Nutz
12-07-2003, 04:15 PM
Just playing around with the contrast/brightness in Photoshop on the moon image I posted:

Dj_Stylz
12-07-2003, 04:16 PM
wicked man ahha

RSeXy
12-08-2003, 12:43 AM
that's cool Derrick!

itsnotaDUB
12-08-2003, 10:38 AM
yah costco is great, i work there lets see some beyond hoddies at work tonight picking up telerscopes, lol

BMWilli
12-08-2003, 11:30 AM
no but my gramma does :D

tulit
12-14-2003, 03:23 PM
I was just at south costco and they still have like 10 left if anyone still wanted one.

D'Z Nutz, do you have any links to anyone who makes adapters for digicams for these things?

D'z Nutz
12-14-2003, 04:18 PM
Originally posted by tulit
D'Z Nutz, do you have any links to anyone who makes adapters for digicams for these things?

Check out www.scopetronix.com.

Believe it or not, but apparently many of the better images of planets taken by amateur astrophotographers are done using webcams. After reading about this, I picked up a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 on Thursday to give a try at it. Unfortunately, since then, the sky's been extremely cloudy :banghead:

It did manage to clear up on Saturday morning about 1:00am'ish for a bit, and I took that chance to snag some images of the moon and Saturn using the webcam.

Moon:
http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/moontopstackedmedian_5.jpg

http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/mooncratersmediandeconvolution_5.jpg

Saturn (you can just barely notice the rings!):
http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/saturnmean.jpg

Sure, these images don't look that great, but I've only started playing around with the image stacking process. What that basically means is you're supposed to take multiple (and sometimes even hundreds of) pictures of the same image and combine them together to reduce the amount of noise presented in them and to bring out the finer details. These three pictures were actually made by only stacking 5 images together each. I would've taken more, but it was so windy that it kept moving the telescope out of view.

The raw images I used to take the pictures can be found at:

Moon Top (http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/moontopraw.jpg)
Moon Craters (http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/mooncratersraw.jpg)
Saturn (http://photos.asianorgansurplus.com/astro/saturnraw.jpg)

If you compare the results with the raw images, you can actually notice a slight improvement. It'll be much more noticable once I get a chance to stack about 80-100 images to produce one good one ;)

In regards to your original question, I just ordered a webcam adaptor from Scopetronix today myself.

ACS-e36
12-14-2003, 04:26 PM
wow thats cool!
but id rather look across the street from my bedroom window :D:drool:

tulit
12-14-2003, 06:23 PM
cool man. looks good. i found out celestron makes a Canon EF adapter so Im going to try and order one of those too.

quick question. what are you using to align it north?

D'z Nutz
12-14-2003, 07:55 PM
Nothing, my balcony faces due south! Otherwise I'd just bust out the compass.

D'z Nutz
12-19-2003, 02:07 AM
I managed to get a somewhat decent shot of Saturn tonight! The image on the right was processed using 31 images similar to the shot on the left.

Compared to my older, crappier image, atleast now you can see the rings :)

Ben
12-23-2003, 02:46 AM
thats awesome, Time to aquire an SLR addaptor for my Telescope.

fast_cars
12-23-2003, 02:50 AM
nice man!!
these pics make me feel like getting a telescope!!

Ben
12-23-2003, 03:34 AM
Went and took a pic of mine :)

D'z Nutz
12-23-2003, 03:41 AM
Cool, now go take a picture WITH it! Jupiter will be heading towards the southern direction if you hurry ;)

What's the aperature size on that?

Ben
12-23-2003, 03:46 AM
Originally posted by D'z Nutz
Cool, now go take a picture WITH it! Jupiter will be heading towards the southern direction if you hurry ;)

What's the aperature size on that?

I'll get all the specs on it tomorrow.

I cant take a picture through the viewfinder, my camera has too big of a lens.

EG STyLeZ
12-23-2003, 04:39 AM
Originally posted by Ben


I'll get all the specs on it tomorrow.

I cant take a picture through the viewfinder, my camera has too big of a lens.

Nice. How old is your telescope? Have you taken any pictures through it in the past?

Ekliptix
01-05-2004, 09:00 PM
Ben, I have that exact telescope! We have it in BC though. You've GOT TO get that hooked up to your camera.

(I wonder if that'd work at a track day? ) ;)